While many different viewpoints were expressed in the
assigned texts, the main argument for women’s education seems to focus on
their moral education. This emphasis on moral education is shown through the
call for women to abandon vanity and trivial social pursuits in favor of rational
thinking and utilizing their mind. The importance of rationality and cultivation
of the mind is emphasized in Mary Robinson’s A Letter to the Women of England and shown as a lesson in the first
dialogue of Charlotte Smith’s Rural
Walks. In Robinson’s text she encourages women to “be less the slaves of
vanity, and more the converts of Reflection” (99). The rejection of vanity in favor of rational
thought will in turn allow women to “explode the superstitious tenets of
bigotry and fanaticism, confirm the intuitive immortality of the soul, and give
them that genuine glow of conscious virtue which will grace them to prosperity”
(99). This connection that Robinson makes between rational thinking and virtue
or morality is shown through Mrs. Woodfield’s style of education and Caroline’s
education in Rural Walks. The result
of the different educations is most starkly shown through the girl’s
interactions with the poor family. The fault of vanity causes Caroline to focus
more on the impression that her accomplishments would make at a ball, and “How
much admiration she should excite! How much praise she would hear”, than help
the poor family (17). In comparison to Caroline, her cousins “seemed to feel
pleasure in imagining little projects of their own, for the relief or the
younger individuals of this unhappy family” (21-22). Mrs. Woodfield’s focus in
the education of her daughters on “sensibility, gratitude, and humility” as
well as the importance of a “young person to be taught to think” instead of
vanity and traditional accomplishments allows her daughters to be morally
superior to Caroline (19,16). This goes back to Robinson’s point that the
cultivation of the mind and emphasis on rational thought and feeling will lead
to greater happiness and virtue.
I have found it interesting that a lot of these authors are pretty preoccupied with the idea of fulfilling virtue. Mary Wollstonecraft based one of her premises off of this idea and it is still unclear to me what it actually means... It seems to be that if someone is to fulfill his/her virtue, she must embody the socioeconomic/gender expectations assigned her. If this is the case, the argument is over what constitutes the virtue of a person. The idea is still difficult for me to articulate, which is why I find it interesting as a factor in these studies.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that vanity is associated with morality and sensibility. I never would have associated being obsessed with vanity with lacking morality and sensibility? I would have assumed, without reading this, that they weren't exactly intertwined with each other or related to one another at all.
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